Family Vacation: New York! New York! and a Little Philly on the Side

The beginning of this trip had all the makings of a Chevy Chase vacation. After a horrible meal at Applebee’s in Clinton, which was comped by management, we stopped at McDonalds, got our second meal and were on our way again to our hotel in KC. When we arrived at the airport hotel which Bryon had reserved for us, guess what? No reservation. Even though we had a receipt and confirmation number, the hotel staff had no record of our reservation. Turns out there are TWO airport Comfort Inns. Called the other one. Nope. No reservation. Apparently they can TAKE the reservation. They just can’t KEEP the reservation. On second thought, maybe we were stuck in a Seinfeld episode. I may watch too much TV.

Luckily, things started going our way the next morning and we flew out of KCI to PHI. Bryon’s nephew Carl was getting married on Sunday, which meant we had three days to play in NYC. Now, I’d been to NYC once. In the 80’s with my mom, dad and brother. In a Winnebago. All I remember is we got lost in the Bronx and some very helpful gentlemen in bouncing, low-rider car directed us back to the highway out of town and back to the mainland. All I saw of NYC was a few trees wrapped in mesh wire and graffiti.

I was nervous and excited about this trip…with a nine-year-old.

Bryon had spend weeks planning the trip and I have to give him props because once we landed in Philly, things went off without a hitch. Well, after they figured out our car rental reservation at the airport because guess what? Two airport Enterprises too. Yeah.

After THAT, we were all over Manhattan.

Bryon found a great hotel in New Jersey in the Meadowlands. The New Jersey Transit bus stop was just across the street. We bought three round-trip tickets as soon as we dropped off our stuff and hit the town. We made six trips through the Lincoln Tunnel to and from NYC those three days. It was pretty dang cool seeing places I’d only ever seen on television or read about in books. Grace loved it. We all did.

The bus dumped us off at Port Authority in Times Square that afternoon and we spent the day exploring.

Which led to more eating, this time in Little China. Grace LOVED Little China. She saved up $200 for souvenirs and loved dickering with the Chinese vendors.

She was a shrewd negotiator and even came home with $60.

All of our adventures and walking wore us our so we caught a cat nap in Union Square Park.

After our park crash, we stopped by a very cool comic store called Forbidden Planet, which happened to be right beside the most amazing the Strand Book Store, where I found THIS awesome shirt.

Next we were off the the New York Public Library. It was amazing hard to find any actual books, ha!

In need of sustenance again, we checked out the Hershey store and a three story M&M store.

Then it was off to Obscura, the Oddities store.

That same night we took a bus tour to Brooklyn.

Back across the Brooklyn Bridge…

to Manhattan.

Day Three in NYC started with the Rockefeller Center and the best view ever of NYC and Central Park.

Perhaps there was a bit of clowning around too.

Then it was off to St. Patrick Cathedral, which was beautiful but under construction,

a 6+ mile bike ride through Central Park,

dinner in Little Italy, dessert (gelato and cannolis),

then back to the hotel in Jersey for a nap and Maleficent.We had a great three days in NYC. Grace was riding the subway like a pro and could probably have ridden it alone by the time we left. I can’t wait to return one day and visit the museums and Little Italy for another cannoli.